Smack in the middle of the inner city, early though it might be, Resnick had known there was always the possibility of the arrest being something of a public event. What he hadn't counted on was a camera crew from the local television station and an eager young reporter who would doubtless soon be trailing her microphone around the neighbourhood, collecting a selection of opinions she could edit to her advantage.
'Go,' he said into the radio. 'Go now.'
Billy Alston was a light sleeper. He was wide awake and vaulting out of bed almost the moment he heard the door smashing downstairs. Wearing only the striped boxers and undershirt he slept in, he was out of the room, while his younger brother, with whom he shared the room, was barely stirring. Heavy footsteps on the stairs below, voices shouting, 'Police. Police. Armed police.'
Alston kicked open the door to the attic room where his sisters were sleeping, both of them surrounded by dolls and stuffed animals, Lauren half out of the top bunk, her arm trailing down towards the floor. When he pushed at the catch, the window into the slanting roof refused to budge. Alston picked a stool up from the floor, and, one arm cradled across his head, smashed the stool against the centre of the glass.
He could hear both his mother and his aunt screaming now, shouting and screaming, and the voices of the police getting louder, their feet closer. Reaching up, he grasped the sides of the window and hauled himself through.
Behind him, Lauren cried out as an armed policeman burst into the room, and she ducked her head back down beneath the covers.
Alston slid down towards the guttering, scattering loose tiles in his wake, balanced for a moment, precariously, then jumped, barefoot, onto the flat roof of the rear extension. Another jump, down into the backyard, and this time he fell awkwardly, his ankle turning under him, scrambling to his feet and part-hopping, part-jumping towards the back gate, which, hanging half off its hinges, gave out into the narrow ginnel running down between the rows of houses.
There were police marksmen some fifteen metres along in both directions, weapons raised.
Fuck!
Without waiting to be asked, Alston raised both hands and placed them, fingers linked, behind his head.
'Down! Down on the ground. Now! Now! Do it, now!'
Slowly, Alston obeyed.
'A charade, Charlie, that's what it was, a fucking charade. Like something out of Life on fucking Mars. '
They had just finished watching television news, shots of heavily armed police swarming towards an innocuous-looking terraced house, interspersed with talking heads, both black and white, speaking, almost unanimously, of police intimidation, overkill, the harassment of an entire community.
'The purpose of the raid, according to a police spokesperson, was to arrest a young male, whom the police have so far declined to name, for questioning in connection with the murder of sixteen-year-old Kelly Brent. One of the reasons given for the presence of so many armed officers at the scene was the very real possibility that there were guns and ammunition on the premises. As far as we can tell, no guns nor ammunition have so far been found.'
Cut to footage, taken from a distance and slightly blurred, of an officer breaking down the door and others pushing past into the building.
'The question we must ask ourselves is to what extent police actions such as these serve to alienate the very communities they are empowered to serve.'
The camera tightened on the reporter's finely made-up face and well-groomed hair.
'This is Robyn Aspley-Jones on the streets of-'
Bill Berry silenced her with the remote, blanking the picture from the screen.
'Public-relations disaster, Charlie.'
'I didn't think public relations were our main concern,' Resnick said.
'Fuck off, Charlie! Where've you been the last fifteen fucking years?'
Resnick chose his words with care. 'With respect, sir, I think I'd consider this morning's operation a success. The man we were after was taken into custody without a shot being fired and is currently being questioned. A detailed search of the premises is still being carried out and, despite Robyn What's-Her-Name, it's far too early to say what we might find.'
Berry uttered a long, heartfelt sigh. 'All right, Charlie, okay. Only for God's sake don't start calling me 'sir.' We're both of us too long in the tooth for that.'
Alston had been given a pair of jeans that were several sizes too large in the waist and an abandoned Nike top with a broken zipper. His solicitor was wearing a pin-striped skirt that covered her knees and a neat little jacket over a pale pink blouse. Every now and again, she made a brisk note in the spiral-bound notebook open on the table before her.
' Casino Royale? ' Michaelson said.
'What?'
'The new Bond.'
'You what?'
'You didn't see it? Daniel Craig, the new James Bond?'
Alston stared back at him, bemused.
'That's what it reminded me of,' Michaelson said. 'You jumping across rooftops and that. I thought maybe you'd seen it, wanted to give it a try.'
'Takin' the piss, i'n it?' Alston said.
'Shame about the fall at the end, bit of a tumble, but otherwise, you ever want to apply for any stunt work…'
Resnick and Bill Berry were watching on a monitor in an adjoining room.
'You know who this pair remind me of?' Berry said.
'Michaelson and Pike? No, who?'
'Little and Large, remember them?'
'Not often,' Resnick said.
'Little and Large without the laughs.'
Hard to imagine, Resnick thought.
'Focus,' he said into Michaelson's earpiece. 'Get to the point.'
This just as Pike was saying, 'Two days before the Kelly Brent shooting, you tried to buy a gun.'
'I did?'
'Trouble with St. Ann's, that's what you said.'
'Yeah?'
'You needed a gun. Protection, that what it was?'
Alston shook his head.
'Two days before it happened, Billy. Trouble with St. Ann's, like you said.' Pike slammed the flat of his hand down fast against the table. 'One girl dead.'
Alston blinked.
'Kelly Brent, you know her, Billy?'
'No.'
'You didn't know her?'
'I knew, like, who she was. Seen her around, yeah.'
'She was what? Fifteen, sixteen?'
'I dunno, man. Didn't really know her, like I say.'
'You got sisters, Billy, that right?'
'They got nothin' to do with this.'
'How old are they, Billy? Your sisters?'
'I don't see the relevance,' the solicitor began.
'Come on, Billy, how old?'
'Eleven an' seven, i'n it?'
'Eleven and seven.'
'Yeah. But that ain't-'
